“Joe, man, what happened to you?”
Joe shook his head wearily. “Love.”
“Love, huh.” Derek opened the refrigerator, searching. Milk, water, lemonade, beer... He glanced back at the table. If they were going to be talking about love, maybe he needed whiskey, too. Though he’d get a bottle of water out for Joe. Looked like he could use a little dilution of the alcohol in his blood. “It’s that bad?”
“It’s worse.”
“Uh-oh.” Derek got a glass down from the cabinet and poured himself a couple of fingers of Jameson’s, his favorite. Poor Joe. Something must have happened with Sarah. “Tell me about it.”
Joe frowned. “Tell me about it like, ‘yeah, I know what you mean,’ or tell me about it, like really tell you about it?”
“Both.” Derek lifted his glass in a toast. “You talk first.”
“Mmph.” Joe stretched and yawned, then hunched back over his whiskey. “I got my dream job offer today.”
“Yeah? Congratulations.” That clearly wasn’t the bad news. Derek toasted Joe again and took a sip of whiskey. Its smooth burn coated his throat. Delicious. He should start stocking the stuff in his cabin for when he was there alone every night and needed anaesthetizing. “That’s a very big deal.”
“Thanks. The job is in Phoenix, which means I’d have to move.”
“Ah.” There was the problem. “Yeah, that’d be a helluva commute from Boston.”
Joe acknowledged the joke with a bleak nod. “If I take it, then I have to say goodbye to Sarah. Which also means I’m saying goodbye to—”
“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. All your hopes and all your dreams about a future with her.” He laughed bitterly. Yeah, he sorta knew what that could feel like.
Joe looked bewildered. “How did you know?”
“I have my ways.”
“Addie?”
Derek’s turn to look surprised. “Uh...”
“Shit.” Joe glowered at the table. “Just shit.”
“Well put.” Derek took another sip of whiskey. Looked like he and Joe had a lot in common right now. “So that’s that with Sarah?”
“That’s that.”
No. Not after all they’d been through together. Derek couldn’t accept that. He’d seen Sarah around Joe; she lit up like the moon. “She won’t go with you?”
Joe laughed bitterly. “Oh, like that would happen.”
“Did you ask her?”
“What, are you kidding me?” He laughed again, so painfully Derek had to hide a wince. “I think I’ve suffered enough humiliation tagging after her like a puppy for the past however many years.”
“Hey, Joe. You love her.”
Joe snorted, noticed his glass, picked it up and tossed back the tiny amount left. “The saddest part? I know exactly how long I’ve been her puppy. Nine years, eight months and four days since I met her at the Vassar bookstore in the checkout line. She’d cut in front of someone by mistake, and he was all bent out of shape. I stepped in and smoothed it over for her. We got talking. I fell for her in about five minutes.”
“Does she know?”
“Of course she knows. Everybody knows.” He flung out his arm and nearly knocked over the bottle, grabbed it at the last second, looked at it in surprise, then sloshed another finger into his glass. “Good old Joe, panting after Sarah while she goes after every guy she meets who’s my most polar opposite. Including you.”
Oof. Yeah. Derek would go back and erase that for Joe’s sake if he could. “But look, none of those guys worked out. Including me. I never touched her by the way.”
“Yeah, I know.” He blew out a frustrated breath and let his head hang. “I’m not angry. It’s not your fault you’re incredibly good-looking and charming and exciting, or whatever else she needs that I’m not.”
Derek contemplated the top of Joe’s head, half feeling sorry for him, half wanting to tell him to grow a pair. “What do you think she needs?”
“The whole bad-boy shtick. That’s not me.” His head was nearly touching the table again. “It’s never going to be me.”